A former Irish youth footballer has revealed how sickening sex abuse by pervert coach Jim McCafferty ruined his life.

The Dublin-born starlet – who played for Celtic under age sides in the mid-80s – says he was molested by the former Hoops, Hibs and Falkirk kitman.

He told how Jim McCafferty would drive the minibus along a back road, find a lonely spot, then stop.

He would tell the frightened boy, the only one left on board, to sit down next to him. Everyone else had already been dropped off.

Then he would say: “I’m not doing any harm – I just want to touch you a wee bit. I’m just playing, having a bit of fun. Don’t be scared.”

It happened over and over again, and it wasn’t all. McCafferty once forced the boy’s friends to strip him naked before rubbing boot polish on his private parts.

This was 33 years ago. But for the victim, now 47, it might as well have been yesterday.

McCafferty’s abuse has never truly left him. He has been through alcoholism and a string of failed relationships.

He is still paying the price. His life has been ruined.

“I can’t have a serious relationship,” the victim said. “I hit the bottle when I was 15 because of what happened to me. I couldn’t sleep at night without a drink.

“I hid this from everybody, even my family. They all knew something was wrong but they didn’t know what.”

As he spoke about his ordeal for the first time in 33 years, the victim told how he first met McCafferty in 1983 while playing for a boys’ team in Motherwell.

McCafferty was a big man in the game, as manager of top junior side Armadale Thistle.

Video Loading

Video Unavailable

Click to playTap to play

The video will start in 8Cancel

Play now

He invited the lad to come and see them play every weekend, “to get more experience of junior football”.

After the games in West Lothian, McCafferty, who lived in Wishaw, would drive the boy and others home in his minibus.

The victim recalled: “He would go the back roads, through Shotts and Harthill or thereabouts.

“He would have a couple of drinks after the game so that would be his excuse. He’d say, ‘I need to go the back roads so I don’t get stopped by the cops.’ “I’d be in the three-seater at the front. I’d try and sit at the window.

“When he dropped all the other boys off, it was only me and him going back to Motherwell.

“I wanted an empty seat between us but he’d pull me over and say, ‘Sit in the middle, I need to talk to you.’

“When you’re young, you just don’t know. You’re bullied. It was just devastating.

“He’d stop off and undo my zip and try to put his hand in my jeans. It was very uncomfortable.

“I would say I was about 15 at the time. He was a big brute of a man, about 18 or 19 stone.

“I didn’t hit him or swear at him. He would’ve killed me due to his temper.

Read More

He was a coach for a time, but he quit – because he feared people would think he was a pervert like his abuser.

“I gave up coaching because I was paranoid,” the victim said. “I wasn’t married, I was a single guy coaching kids and I thought people would think I was like McCafferty.

“This is how it affects you. It’s unbelievable how one event leads on to everything.

“It had a profound effect on my life, but I couldn’t go to the police because I was too embarrassed.

“I couldn’t put my family or friends through that.”

But the victim has now told detectives what McCafferty did to him, and hopes he will soon face justice.

He said: “It may have taken me 33 years, but I want to expose this guy and show him for what he really is.”

A Police Scotland spokesman said: “Police in West Lothian have received a report of non-recent sexual abuse, and will commence inquiries to establish the full circumstances surrounding this matter.”

Like his victim, McCafferty also spent time at Celtic. He served as the club’s kitman in the 1990s and was involved with the youth set-up.

His time at Parkhead ended after a 1996 police investigation into his activities with boys.

McCafferty laid low for a time but then returned to football as kitman at Hibs.

He later took on the same role at Falkirk. But in 2005, leaked police documents revealed that he was once viewed as a potential suspect in the 1996 murder of 14-year-old Celtic youth player Lawrence Haggart.